The Rhine River: Convention Notes

Thursday, July 29, 2004

I want to mention a few ways that the Democratic convention impressed me.

Barack Obama had the best speech, hands down. "We worship a mighty G-d in the blue states ... ." He blew Clinton away, and Edwards was no competition.
John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Clinton, was unfairly ignored. He gave a substantial and thoughtful speech about military policy under Democratic administrations through a pleasant Polish accent. Unfortunately, his speech was shown by no one except C-SPAN.
Wes Clark showed that he could move a crowd--one in which many were determined to sit on their hands--with his inspirational speech. How could they put Lieberman on after Wes? I also noted that Kerry took two bits from Clark's schtick: this flag belongs to no party and in order to have family values, you must value families.
Off hand, 8 pm on Thursday could have been called the Mischling hour.
MSNBC had the best commentary and showed more of the speeches. C-SPAN was, nonetheless, essential viewing.
I saw a lot of Joe Trippi on MSNBC: I think people give him too much credit for Dean's successes. The jokes about wanting to know the identity of "Deep Throat" from Bernstein was funny.
Technically, Kucinich had the second most delegates--a result that does not reflect the reality of the primary campaign.
Finally, bloggers did little to enhance the coverage of the convention. The only big news that came out was that Atrios is a real person. Bloggers who stayed at home had stories and commentaries that were just as good as those who took the trip to Boston.